Bankruptcy Law Section

Douglas M. Foley, chair

Bankruptcy practitioners abound in firms of all sizes and locations and the Bankruptcy Section enjoys a large membership from a cross-section of our body as a whole. The board’s vice chair during this past fiscal year was Steven B. Ramsdell of Tyler, Bartl, Ramsdell & Counts PLC and the secretary was Robert Westermann of Hirschler Fleischer in Richmond. At our June 2013 meeting both Steve and Robbie were elected as chair and vice-chair respectively of the section for 2013-2014.

This year the section has focused on providing quality continuing legal education at low cost to our members. To that end, we held two very successful programs this year. The first was titled “The ‘Means Test’ Form Under Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 and Other Nuts and Bolts of Consumer Bankruptcy Law.” This was a day-long complex consumer program held in Richmond on March 15 and moderated by Steve Ramsdell, our current chair, and included the Honorable Rebecca B. Connelly and the Honorable Douglas O. Tice Jr. Many of our membership volunteered to serve as speakers. By all accounts it was a success — both entertaining and informative. We followed that program with a ninety-minute session titled “How Strong Are the Trustee’s Section 544 Strong Arm Powers?” which was held as part of the 75th VSB Annual Meeting in Virginia Beach. We were delighted to have the Honorable Chief Judge Steven C. St. John to discuss the recent litigation phenomena in this area of law along with Jeffrey L. Marks of Kaufman & Canoles and Larry Glanzer of Roussos, Lassiter, Glanzer & Barnhart PLC.

In addition to our CLE programs, the bankruptcy board, through the leadership of Editor Mark C. Leffler and his Newsletter Committee, has continued to publish scholarly articles and case updates for our membership through the Bankruptcy Law News. The June issue also included published remarks by retiring Judge Douglas O. Tice Jr. Mark is now a full member of the board and Sarah Boehm of McGuireWoods LLP will be taking over as editor going forward. It takes a great deal of non-billable hours to put together these very informative materials and we very much appreciate the volunteer efforts of Mark Leffler and our entire Newsletter Committee team.

We also look forward to moving forward next year under the leadership of Steven Ramsdell as chair and Robbie Westermann as vice chair and the rest of the board of governors.